My daughter shared a quote with me that was posted outside a London Tube station: “A caterpillar grows wings during a season of isolation.  Remember that.”  God, that’s good. It evokes such spectacular imagery for me. The world would be adorned with millions of butterflies if we took that quote to heart.  To learn about ourselves and all that we are capable of doing, we need to go inward, look at what’s there and work out what we need to work out.  If you want to become that butterfly, you have to accept the fact that you need the time to observe, feel and find the beauty in struggle.  It takes time, is often painful and a lot of hard work to look at what’s going on inside your cocoon and discern what supports your metamorphosis and what hinders your ability to fly. 

Let’s face it, it’s safe inside the cocoon.  We don’t have to fear the judgement of others.  We don’t have to step out of our comfort zone and move on.  We don’t have to take chances and face uncertainty.  We don’t have to look at the pain that binds our wings if we’ve decided we’re never going to use them anyway.  If we choose to stay safe inside our cocoon, we can avoid looking at what it takes to end our struggle to break free.  The price we pay for not evolving into that butterfly is hefty.  We just sit in our cocoon never knowing what it feels like to do what we were meant to do. We lose our ability to fly.

All the things we use to deal with our suffering in an unproductive way, involve looking to the outside to fix what’s going on inside. The approval of others, busyness, food, jobs, sex, money, drugs, alcohol – you name it, the list is endless.  The only thing these “fixes” do is stunt our growth and keep us from moving to the next stage of our wisdom catching. To truly end our pain, we have to hang out with it, figure out what’s going on and get to work.  Feeling broken and trying to grow from that, does not make us unlovable and too damaged to fly.  It is an act of bravery.  We have to wrestle with all the things that hurt us, damaged us and muster the strength to re-build.  It means we look inside, search for our inner voice, listen, feel and trust in our ability to grow wings. We have to do these things so we are able to move onto the runway and prepare for flight.  

Busting out of a cocoon looks like a lot of work.  As that caterpillar moves from inertia to feeling its way around what encapsulates it, a lot happens.  The movement helps the caterpillar develop the strength it needs to break through what keeps it contained. The other butterflies just watch and wait because they know that if they jump in to strip down the cocoon walls for their emerging friend, that butterfly will never develop the strength to do what it was meant to do.  Which is to develop its own flight path given its strengths and struggles and fly solo among the other butterflies that soar proudly, scars and all.

1.  If you’re a human, you’ve struggled.  Recall a situation where you overcame a struggle.  No struggle is too little or too big because all of it triggers learning and growth.

2.  Is it hard to hear your inner voice? Why?

3. What external sources do you rely on to avoid looking at the stuff going on in your cocoon?

4.  What scares you the most about flying and why?

5.  How are you able to support others who are struggling without tearing down their cocoon walls and pulling them out?